Sam I Am ...spiritual adventures of a Christ-follower.

In my position, I get the opportunity to read and listen to a lot of authors, quotes, etc. Probably as much as any other, this story by John Ortberg represents my heart - for people, the work of the kingdom and our lost world. It goes like this.

In Massachusetts there is a little museum on Nantucket Island. It was devoted to a volunteer organization that was formed centuries ago, over 300 years ago.
In those days, travel by sea was extremely dangerous, and given storms in the Atlantic, and the real rocky coasts of Massachusetts, many many lives were lost real close to the shore, within a mile or less of the land.
And a group of people who lived on that island couldn’t stand to think about all these people going down so close to them. So, they went into the life saving business. They banded together to form what was originally was called the Humane Society. We think about animals with that name now, but in those days, that was a life saving deal for them. They built little huts that dotted the shore. You can still see one of them in this museum. They built little huts containing boats and rescue equipment. They were sometimes called huts of refuge.
Huts of refuge. And people were posted in those huts all the time. And their job was just to keep watching the sea. And any time a ship went down, the word would go out. They would devote everything. They would risk themselves to save every life they could. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, somebody was watching. Everybody was willing.
They did it for no money. They did it for no recognition. They did it just because they prized human life.
And to remind them how seriously they took this task, and what was at stake, they adopted a motto. I love this motto: “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.” That is a catchy little recruiting slogan, don’t you think? “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.” You wouldn’t think that would entice a whole lot of people into joining them, but it did.
It is a fascinating thing to read accounts in that museum of people who risked everything, even their lives, to save other people they had never met, faces they had never seen, names they might not ever know.
Over time things changed and after a while, what would come to be known as the U.S. Coast guard, started to take over this task. And, for a little while, the Coast Guard and the Life Saving Society worked side by side. Eventually the idea that carried the day was, “Let the professionals do it. They are better trained. They get paid for it.”
Volunteers stopped manning the little huts. They stopped searching the coastline for sinking ships. They stopped sending out teams to rescue people.
And, it is a funny thing. They couldn’t bring themselves to disband. And the life saving society still exists today. It meets every once in a while in Boston or someplace in New England to have dinners. And they hand out awards for things like community service. They enjoy each other’s company. They sponsor programs. They get together. They are just not in the life saving business any more. They don’t scour the coastline anymore to see if anybody is going down.
They don’t know the thrill any more of what it is to risk themselves to save a life that could perish. They don’t speak those words to each other any more, “You have to go out, but you don't have to come back.” They are just not in the life-saving business anymore.
It happens all the time. It doesn't happen in a day. It doesn't happen in a month. But over time, a church forgets it is in the life saving business. It usually doesn't disband, at least not until much later. People still meet. They still enjoy each other's company. They still use words like community. They still have services and buildings and staffs and programs. They might even be involved in various forms of community service. They are just not sending out teams any more for people who are going down. They are just not really scouring neighborhoods and offices, schools and networks and cities to see if there is somebody that needs to be saved.
They forgot, maybe, that Jesus put this rescue effort in the hands of volunteers who would love the people that God loves so much and adopt for themselves the motto, "You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.”
They have buildings and budgets and staffs and meetings. They are just not in the life saving business any more. It can happen to a church. It can happen to a small group. It can happen to an individual. And don’t think it can’t happen in your church; don’t think it can’t. Don’t think it can’t happen to you.
Whether or not we stay into the life-saving business is in the hands of the people in this room. Jesus is still looking for people who are willing to go into the life saving business. That is what the church does

It's my prayer to be able to find a way to communicate this to others.

Life is meant to be lived with purpose. At our fellowship, we are beginning the 40 days of purpose. Sometimes, to a lot of people, life can seem purposeless. It's not - in Christ. But to much of our world, it seems so.

In the movie, City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays a baby boomer who visit's his son's class room and tells about his work but gives an unexpected explanation of life as follows:

Value this time in your life, kids. 'Cause this is the time in your life when you still have your choices. It goes by so fast. When you're a teenager, you think you can do anything and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Thirties. You raise your family. You make a little money. And you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?" Forties. You grow a little pot belly. You grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud. One of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Fifties. You have a minor surgery. You call it a "procedure." But it's a surgery. Sixties. You'll have a major surgery. The music is still loud, but it doesn't matter, because you can't hear it anyway. Seventies. You and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. Start eating dinner at two o'clock in the afternoon. Get lunch around ten. Breakfast, the night before. Spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering, "How come the kids don't call? How come the kids don't call?" The eighties. You'll have a major stroke. You end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand but you call "Mama." Any questions?

If we don't live for spiritual purposes, it could just be that way. I thank God for His Great Purposes.

As our church is going to do the purpose driven life, I was struck by a poem that related to the book. I thank God I am his child.

You are who you are for a reason.
You are part of an intense plan.
You're a precious and perfect unique design,
Called God's special woman or man.

You look like you look for a reason.
Our God made no mistake.
He knit you together within the womb,
You're just what He wanted to make.

The parents you have are the ones He chose,
And no matter how you may feel,
They were custom-designed with God's Plan in mind,
And they bear the Master's seal.

No, the trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into His likeness you'd grow.

You are who you are for a reason,
You've been formed by the Master's rod.
You are who you are, beloved,
Because there is a God.


If everyone only knew what they were "here on earth" for.

When I think of sermons that I have been moved by, perhaps the one that comes to mind most often over my speaking career is familiar to most. I really have to only mention four words.... "I have a Dream".

Martin Luther King Jr was a liberal as a young guy but experienced conversion. I read recently part of a message he gave on a parable Jesus told. The congregation’s reaction is in parentheses.
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...Finally, this man was a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on God. (Yeah) Do you know that man talked like he regulated the seasons?

...this man-centered foolishness is still alive today. In fact, it has gotten to the point today that some are even saying that God is dead. The thing that bothers me about it is that they didn't give me full information, because at least I would have wanted to attend God's funeral.

I want to raise a question, how long had he been sick? I want to know whether he had a heart attack or died of cancer. These questions haven't been answered for me, and so I'm going on believing and knowing that God is alive.

There are certain conceptions of God that needed to die, but not God. You see, God is the supreme noun of life; Everything else is dependent on him, but he is dependent on nothing.

One day Moses had to grapple with it and God sent him out and told him to tell the people that "I Am sent you." God is the only being in the universe that can say that "I Am," and stop there.

Whenever I say, "I am," I have to say, "I am because of"‹because of my parents, because of my environment, because of hereditary circumstances. And each of you has to say you are because of something. But ...God, the power that holds the universe in the palm of his hand, is the only being that can say, "I Am," and put a period there and never look back. And don't be foolish enough to forget him.

You know, a lot of people are forgetting God. They haven't done it theoretically, as others have done through their theories‹postulated through the God-is-dead theology‹but a lot of people just get involved in other things. ...involved in their big bank accounts and in their beautiful expensive automobiles --they unconsciously forget God.

But I tell you this morning, my friends, there's no way to get rid of him.
...Modern man still has to cry out with the Psalmist, "When I behold the heavens, the work of thy hands and all that thou hast created; what is man, that thou is mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou hast remembered him?"

God is still around. One day, you're going to need him.

The problems of life will begin to overwhelm you; disappointments will begin to beat upon the door of your life like a tidal wave. (Yes) And if you don't have a deep and patient faith, (Well) you aren't going to be able to make it.

I know this from my own experience. The first twenty-five years of my life were very comfortable years... didn't have to worry about anything.

I have a marvelous mother and father. They went out of the way to provide everything for their children, basic necessities. ...And you know, I was about to conclude that life had been wrapped up for me in a Christmas package.

Now of course I was religious; I grew up in the church. ...My father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, my only brother is a preacher, my Daddy's brother is a preacher.
So I didn't have much choice, I guess. (laughter)

But I had grown up in the church, and the church meant something very real to me, but it was a kind of inherited religion and I had never felt an experience with God in the way that you must have it if you're going to walk the lonely paths of this life. Everything was done, and if I had a problem I could always call Daddy, my earthly father; things were solved.

But one day after finishing school, I was called to a little church down in Montgomery, Alabama, and I started preaching there. Things were going well in that church; it was a marvelous experience. But one day a year later, a lady by the name of Rosa Parks decided that she wasn't going to take it any longer. She stayed in a bus seat, and you may not remember it because it's way back now several years, but it was the beginning of a movement...

Things were going well for the first few days, but then about ten or fifteen days later, after the white people in Montgomery knew that we meant business, they started doing some nasty things. They started making nasty telephone calls, and it came to the point that some days more than forty telephone calls would come in, threatening my life, the life of my family, the life of my children. I took it for a while in a strong manner.

But I never will forget one night very late. It was around midnight. And you can have some strange experiences at midnight.

I had been out meeting with the steering committee all that night. And I came home, and my wife was in the bed and I immediately crawled into bed to get some rest to get up early the next morning to try to keep things going.
And immediately the telephone started ringing and I picked it up. On the other end was an ugly voice. That voice said to me, in substance, "Nigger, we are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren't out of this town in three days, we're going to blow your brains out and blow up your house." (Lord Jesus)

I'd heard these things before, but for some reason that night it got to me.
I turned over and I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I was frustrated, bewildered. And then I got up and went back to the kitchen and I started warming some coffee, thinking that coffee would give me a little relief.

And then I started thinking about many things. I thought back on the theology and philosophy that I had just studied in the universities, trying to give philosophical and theological reasons for the existence and the reality of sin and evil, but the answer didn't quite come there.

I sat there and thought about a beautiful little daughter who had just been born about a month earlier. We have four children now, but we only had one then. She was the darling of my life. I'd come in night after night and see that little gentle smile. And I sat at that table thinking about that little girl and thinking about the fact that she could be taken away from me any minute. And I started thinking about a dedicated, devoted, and loyal wife who was over there asleep. And she could be taken from me, or I could be taken from her. And I got to the point that I couldn't take it any longer; I was weak.

Something said to me, you can't call on Daddy now, he's up in Atlanta a hundred and seventy-five miles away. You can't even call on Mama now. You've got to call on that something in that person that your Daddy used to tell you about. (Yes) That power that can make a way out of no way. (Yes)

And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me and I had to know God for myself. (Yes, sir) And I bowed down over that cup of coffee. I never will forget it. (Yes, sir) And oh yes, I prayed a prayer and I prayed out loud that night. (Yes) I said, "Lord... I must confess that I'm weak now; I'm faltering; I'm losing my courage. (Yes)

...And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, (Yes) "Martin Luther... lo I will be with you, (Yes) even until the end of the world."

And I'll tell you, I've seen the lightning flash. I've heard the thunder roll. I felt sin- breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul.

But I heard the voice of Jesus... He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to leave me, (Never) never to leave me alone.

And I'm going on in believing in him. (Yes) You'd better know him, and know his name, and know how to call his name. (Yes)

You may not know philosophy. You may not be able to say with Alfred North Whitehead that he's the Principle of Concretion. You may not be able to say with Hegel and Spinoza that he is the Absolute Whole. You may not be able to say with Plato that he's the Architectonic Good. You may not be able to say with Aristotle that he's the Unmoved Mover.

But ...you begin to know that our brothers and sisters in distant days were right. Because they did know him as a rock in a weary land, as a shelter in the time of starving, as my water when I'm thirsty, and then my bread in a starving land.

And then if you can't even say that, ...you have to say, "he's my everything. He's my sister and my brother. He's my mother and my father." If you believe it and know it, you never need walk in darkness.

Don't be a fool. Recognize your dependence on God. (Yes, sir) As the days become dark and the nights become dreary, realize that there is a God who rules above.

And so I'm not worried about tomorrow. I get weary every now and then. The future looks difficult and dim, but I'm not worried about it ultimately because I have faith in God.

Centuries ago Jeremiah raised a question, "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?" He raised it because he saw the good people suffering so often and the evil people prospering. (Yes, sir)

Centuries later our slave foreparents came along. (Yes, sir) And they too saw the injustices of life... But they did an amazing thing. They looked back across the centuries and they took Jeremiah's question mark and straightened it into an exclamation point. And they could sing, "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. (Yes) There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul." And there is another stanza that I like so well: "Sometimes (Yeah) I feel discouraged." (Yes)

And I don't mind telling you this morning that sometimes I feel discouraged.

(All right) ...Living every day under extensive criticisms, even from Negroes, I feel discouraged sometimes. (applause) Yes, sometimes I feel discouraged and feel my work's in vain.

But then the holy spirit (Yes) revives my soul again. "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul." God bless you. (applause)

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Pretty neat, huh. It helped me to read it. Maybe you too.

Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

As Good as It Gets is a movie about three radically different types of people. One is a obsessive compulsive, an artist type and a waitress who is a single mom. Melvin Udall (who happens to be Jack NicholsonJ) is a offensive guy to almost everyone he meets.

He is fond of the waitress, Carol (Helen Hunt). She winds up going to a nice resturant with him during a trip. She is not used to being waited upon (quite the opposite) but while everyone is dressed up in the place, she has on a plain dress.

Melvin really blows it. He says "They make me buy a new outfit and let you in wearing a house dress." Carol gets angry and tells him "Pay me a compliment, Melvin. I need one now."

He tries to think of something to make up for blowing it and says "I've got a great compliment". What he says next, I simply love. After shooting himself in the foot, he looks into her eyes and says "Carol, you make me want to be a better man."

Carol is the grace of God to Melvin. Grace does amazing things for him. Grace does amazing things for us as well. I don't deserve it but I am grateful. Jesus, through grace, makes me want to be a better man.

Eph 3: 8-9 Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things